Grim Views

Thalevia sat back and stretched, vertebrae popping with the motion. Anriel looked up at her mistress from the book in her lap and commented in soft demonic. Thal grinned in response and carefully help up a completed vase covered in Tol’vir script and markings. There were a couple white spots where she had filled in for pieces she never recovered but the image wrapping around in faded blue and yellow paint was readily visible.

“Lovely mistress. But what purpose does it serve?” The succubus asked in lightly accented gutterspeak.

“To look pretty on a shelf, if many of my brethren are to be believed.” She turned the vase in her hand, examining the image. “But its true function is to better allow us to understand our history. And it could very well hold the key to great secrets. The Tol’vir are a powerful race, one crafted by the titans and unlike others they haven’t lost that knowledge.”

“What will you do with it then?”

“For now, it will sit on my shelf there, I have other things to require my attention first.” Thalevia carefully placed the now completed artefact on her small shelf and made her way to the small desk tucked in the corner near her loom. On it was a folder, tied neatly with string, on top of which a letter sat, open and read. On it in aristocratic script were only a few lines.

“The hunter has left. You will take his place as High Inquisitor until such time that a suitable replacement is found.”
And only the Grim seal as a signature.

She snarled, thinking of the letter and then sat down to begin to leaf through the file. It contained information on all The Grim’s minions and supplicants and it was something she regretfully was not entirely up to date with. Unfortunately, parts were extremely patchy and all together missing in others. She would, with the aid of others, have to correct that.

Grabbing a pen and ink, she began to compose one of several letters.

Two months.

That's how long the warlock waited in those barren cliffs. Two months of following orders that went against his being and conscience. Orders to maim, defile, and kill the Horde he'd been trained to serve for the prior four years. But it was for the greater good. That's what he kept telling himself. It was for the Horde, ultimately.

It was for Peace.

He was supposed to follow up with reports to the Enforcer, but the Eyes of Twilight never turned away. An eye with no lids has no need to blink. That and the mad ogre had enough eyes to watch anything he wanted, both manufactured and natural. Reports never made it home, to Orgrimmar. Even Darwen, his succubus, who could become invisible at will, could not sneak past the Eye. Still, there was nothing to report. He never made it into the upper echelons of power within the Hammer. He never knew the orders before they were to be carried out. He was distrusted.

Reputation preceded him. The Hammer knew of The Grim. Enough members remember the assaults in Silithus by zealous members who wished for trinkets, reputation, or equipment. Such a deep seething hatred, further than normally radiated by such a twisted cult, hurt his scouting. The warlock was never permitted into the Bastion upon the border of Modan. He almost didn't make it to the Highlands at all, if not for his work against the Traitor Prince in the north. His skills were too useful to pass up, and as such, we has permitted to remain in the Citadel, beneath the towering spire of twisted, perverted rock.

It was enough to keep himself alive, but only just. The blood elf was naught but a grunt, doing the dirty work of his superiors. Two months of demeaning, traitorous work. But all things must pass, and true intentions eventually take hold again.

In the dead of winter, cries echoed in the cold Highland air. Voices and phrases that boiled his blood with patriotism. The Grim had come to the Bastion. Upon exploration, when he could, he saw the banners. The cloaked dagger of the Grim carved into rock and marked in blood upon fallen enemies. The scouting was over, the Annihilation had begun.

The warlock schemed for the next week, looking for his opening to return home, to return to his comrades. It came suddenly. Again an assault came to the Bastion, and this time, a cry of rage echoed through the barren rock, reverberating and nearly deafening all who heard. One of Cho'gall's champions had fallen, and there was a clamor of panic as the Twilight cult tried to assess the damage. Using the confusion as a cover, the warlock took his leave. His magic still served, and using the fel he learned to control he took to the oceans, breathing through his spells as he swam to the Hinterlands.

Freezing and dripping wet, the warlock purchased a flight to the Undercity, securing a zeppelin to Orgrimmar. The young sin'dorei skulked through the Drag, searching for the hidden door in the alleyways. He knew the location, he knew the entry. He wandered through the empty, bloodstained hallways, looking for an office he knew would remain. Indeed, the smell of old parchment and fel magics assaulted his nose as he drew near. He peeked into the doorway, and noticed the small undead woman fiddling with a piece of paper, and heard her displeasure at whatever it bore upon it. As she bent over her desk to begin scrawling some sort of reply, or other correspondence, the warlock finally entered. Charred fingers curled around the door frame as he slipped inside, murmuring simply, "Seeker Aquizit, reporting in..." fel green eyes darted to the paper lying upon the desk, "High Inquisitor Thalevia."